Too Many Times
by Athena356
Summary: One of the ER docs rethinks his decisions....who is it? r/r, as it is my first ER fic......in the review, take a guess...I want to know who you all think it is!
1. Making the Choice

He'd seen them go so many times. So many times. Without knowing what the outcome would be. Oncology. Genetics. Even the ICU. or just back out on the streets. Cardiology. Specialists, their own doctors. To Mercy because their HMOs wouldn't authorize a stay at County. Too expensive. Home to die, home to live alone, home to just get out of the damn hospital already.   
  
  
  
MVA. GSW. v-fib. CBC, chem-7, x-ray, radiology. asystole, IV, CT. 3 units of O-neg, NOW! Exam 1, exam 2, curtain 1, trauma 2, suture room, SICU.   
  
  
  
He'd yelled out all of those things to the nurses, sending his patients to various rooms. Determining their fate with just one shout to the nurses. Yell the wrong thing and you've got a flatliner. dead. all night, all day. Traumas. too many traumas come in and you could be there for three days straight. no sleep. coffee. caffine. coffee. anything. whatever you could get at the little cart outside the ER. or even worse, at doc's. doc magoos that is.   
  
  
  
He sighed and got up from the surprisingly comfortable couch. surprisingly comfortable after 27 hours of standing and working. He found it harder to fall asleep each night and harder to wake up each morning. So he spent his days and nights at work on auto pilot. And on auto pilot you make a few mistakes. Only one had been fatal. And it could have happened to anyone. But even one was a lot for him. And it didn't happen to anyone. It happened to him.  
  
  
He got up and slipped off to the roof, which seemed to be a favorite spot of the ER docs. He stared at Chicago spread out before him, and for once, instead of thinking of all the people he'd helped, of all the people happy and alive because of him, he thought of that one girl. She was five when he made the fatal mistake. She would never see her sixth birthday. She would always be five. And so he left the ER. He walked quietly, lest Kerry should see him and send him back to work past the end of his shift. Dodging gurneys and EMTs, traumas and people with too many questions, he left, into the cold Chicago air once more. Home to think about what he had become. To decide, once and for all, if he would wake up in the morning and come to Cook County General. Ever.


	2. What Really Matters

AN: finally, right? what's it been, over 4 months? wow. This might be a different person, it might be the same one... :). take a guess in the review!~~~Thena  
  
  
It's amazing how fast a life can end. One second, the patient's heart is beating and they have a chance to live, and the next, they're flatline. dead. And that's all. You could save a hundred lives. But there are some people who stick with you. The ones who don't deserve to die, the innocents. The bystanders, victims of drunk drivers, hostages, abused children. It makes you wonder sometimes if it's even worth it.   
  
It's not your fault, they tell you that in med school. Not your fault, some people just can't be saved. But you blame yourself, especially with those cases that are personal. You know, like your dad died of cancer and you've got a terminal patient who smoked for his whole life. No way to save him, but you still see the image of your dad hovering over the guy's face and it's like he's dying all over again. Or like your dad hit your mom, slapped her around a lot, and now this woman comes in, beaten to death by her husband or boyfriend or whatever the case may be. And it's your mom in the trauma room dying on the table, not some woman you've never met, some woman you'll never meet. It's almost impossible to separate yourself from the patient sometimes, and sometimes you don't want to. It's painful, but there's something sick about wanting to do it. And I do. I want to do this, even if I have to see a million people dying all over again in front of me, or the same person's face blocking out all the light in the room, reminding me of their horrible death.   
  
I love it, honestly. Bringing someone back from the brink of death, presenting the happy news to their families...it almost makes me think the death is worth it. Almost. I know it's not, not really, but it's close. I love this more than anything, and I hate it more than anything sometimes too. Ultimately, I make a difference. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. But I'm always making a difference. And isn't that what counts?


End file.
